Clothes Dryer Care & Maintenance

Proper clothes dryer care and  maintenance can keep your clothes fresh and dry as well as save you time and money. By maintaining your clothes dryer your clothes will dry much quicker and come out of the dryer fresh and clean. This helps you voided repeated drying cycles and ending up running the dryer over and over again which can increase the cost associated with running the appliance. Follow the following simple advice to keep your clothes dryer running in the most efficient manner possible.

Keep your Clothes Dryer Running Efficiently

• Avoid kinking exhaust vent behind dryer. The shorter the better.
• Exhaust ducting should be of a metalized semi rigid/flexible material. Do not use vinyl as it can be easily crushed. Vinyl will not withstand heat as well as metalized ducting.
• Check your outside vent hood. Clean if necessary. It is not advisable to use mesh wire or grates to cover the vent hood. This will definitely help keep rodents or birds out of your exhaust but can easily clog as some lint always makes it through the dryer’s lint screen. The best vent hood has a flapper that opens when the dryer is in use and closes when off. Verify proper operation of the flapper periodically.
• Clean lint screen between loads and more frequently if drying material with higher cotton content.
• Do not overload dryer. Too many clothes will inhibit proper circulation of heated air between and through the garments. On the other hand, too few clothes can create a similar problem by bunching and disallowing proper air flow through the clothes. Proper air flow dissipates the moisture from the clothes faster making for a faster dry time.
• In winter months, dryers located in a heated area of the home will dry more quickly than a non-heated utility room.
• Drying multiple loads one after the other will reduce overall dry time by utilizing heat retained by the dryer from previous loads.
• Recheck pockets before putting clothes into dryer. Chewing gum may make it through the wash with little to no consequence but your luck will run out if it is put into the dryer. Gum, pencils, change, nails, needles, jewelry, etc. can damage clothing as well as damage your appliance (as a rule of thumb, do not lay loose change or other small articles on top of your appliances).

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